


Getting Used To It

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Community: sentinel_thurs, M/M, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 18:06:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13769637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: A night in the loft...





	Getting Used To It

**Author's Note:**

> for LJ's Sentinel Thursday challenge #597: "salt"
> 
> This particular fic came to Sentinel Thursday courtesy of TS Chat. I, um, saw a note about a challenge to write something - 500 words or less - emphasizing description (there's a post about it here: https://ts-news.livejournal.com/601894.html), and hey, yes! I'm in, right? 
> 
> Or, 2000 words later, out. Apparently, it wasn't enough to describe a few things; I had to keep going. And going. And going... 
> 
> Anyway, here you have it. Such as it is.

_I could get used to this,_ Blair thinks. It's a very comfortable this, after all - the mattress is newer than the futon, firmer (but not too firm), and, well, _bouncier._ In the top ten, at least, of all the beds, futons, sofas, cots, hammocks, sleeping bags, Greyhound bus seats, and shag-carpeted VW bus floorboards (among other things) that Blair's ever slept on. 

What the bed's wearing would be easy to get used to, too. The sheets are almost silky-feeling under his fingers as he slides them back and forth over the cotton: half an idle inch towards the side of the bed, half an inch back, over and over. A high thread count lives up to its hype, apparently. Which makes the bucks he shelled out for these sheets ("Just a little something I got you for International Literacy Day, Jim") totally worth while, even if Jim's never actually said he liked them. 

Before tonight, that is. 

They smell great. The sheets. He turns his head on the pillow (which, not so coincidentally - "Happy Susan B. Anthony Day; no, I'm not making this stuff up, Jim - just roll with it" - is an _excellent_ pillow, plenty of give and plenty of support, all materials certified organic) and breathes in deeply. The pillowcase, like the sheets, smells great. Well, sort of great: the lingering localized impression of fresh air and sunshine (Gaia's Garden Gentle Laundry Detergent, $7.99 at Cascade Co-op) gracing the sheets and his pillowcase has taken something of a hit, topped off as it is with the sharper and more pervasive scents of sweat and sex. 

Sweaty sex. And now the sweat on his otherwise very happy skin is cooling him off enough that he fumbles for an edge of the tangled top sheet and coaxes it up his body to give himself some cover. It's kind of a stealth operation, since he's really not into waking Jim up right now and Jim's currently in possession of roughly half the sheet, lying with it pulled up almost to his waist, but he makes it. Good thing Jim radiates perceptible warmth from his ( _so_ ripped) bare, sweaty chest - Blair can ease his way a few inches closer across the smooth sheets and soak up some of that warmth later, if he needs to. (It's not like he can pull the quilt up under his chin. He's not even sure where the quilt is, actually. It's not on the bed, anyway. There's an amorphous lump lying at the top of the stairs, barely visible in the faint light from the skylight, that might be the quilt. Or some of his clothes. Or some of Jim's clothes. Or any combination of the above.)

The refrigerator motor clicks on downstairs and starts humming quietly to itself. Otherwise everything's quiet, aside from the usual nighttime city background traffic sounds and the distant, echoing horn blast from a cargo ship maneuvering its way into the port. Aside from Jim, breathing slowly and deeply beside him.

He could get used to this, lying beside Jim and listening to him breathe. Used to looking at Jim like this, after having sex. 

Or even after not having sex. Just... lying here. 

A wedge of pale gray light from the waxing moon has made its way through the skylight to hang out on Jim's chest, letting Blair watch the slow rise and fall of Jim's ribcage with more clarity. It's comforting and sort of hypnotic, and - 

\- and _ouch._ Turns out that running your tongue over your lips after you've just had sex with Jim - especially if Doritos were involved - is not necessarily a good idea. And even more especially if your lips ended up coming into a lot of close and vigorous contact with Jim's beard-stubble.

No big deal. It's not the first time Blair's acquired chafed lips - or various other chafed body parts - from having sex. He just needs some lip balm. And salt-free lips; the salt from their sweat and from Jim's pre-sex Doritos seems to be combining in some weird synergy that's tripling the baseline sting value. 

It doesn't matter, though. Because he's lying here beside Jim. Watching him sleep. After they've had sex. Things could be really good here.

...Or really bad. He doesn't know what it means, the sex they just had. Okay, he knows what it means to _him,_ but he doesn't know what it means to Jim. Sure, Jim, totally out of the blue, interrupted his favorite Bonanza rerun and the havoc he was wreaking on a bag of Doritos to urgently make out - and more - with Blair, but "You want to try out those fancy sheets you bought me, Chief?" isn't exactly a declaration of ongoing romantic intent. Or even of ongoing non-romantic intent. 

So it may not matter how easily he could get used to this, to spending nights like this with Jim; he might not get the chance. 

The slow and steady breathing Blair's been listening to for the past half an hour or so abruptly morphs into a sniffling snort that's swallowed up by a yawn. 

The yawn is followed up by a disgruntled-sounding huff. "You're messing up the sheets, Chief," Jim says.

"Is that your subtle way of kicking me downstairs?" Blair asks, and he's not really being sarcastic, just... practical. 

Jim's hand clamps around his wrist with the implacability of a handcuff. "No," Jim says. 

He shifts, rolling towards Blair until nothing more than a (very) few inches of air separate them. His hand doesn't release Blair's wrist, but he brings his other hand up to Blair's face and brushes his fingers lightly over Blair's skin. "You've got orange crap all over you."

"What," Blair says, a little stupidly, because now that Jim's fingers are pointing it out, he can feel the fine, oily grit on his skin. "Oh. Not my fault," he protests, and heroically prevents himself from raising his head to chase after more of Jim's touch when Jim moves his hand away. "You were the one with the Doritos."

"You're the one with them now," Jim points out. "Orange really isn't a good color on you, Chief."

There's amusement in his voice, and Blair is engulfed by a wave of hope running through his body. (That it's accompanied by an urgent desire to test Jim's color perception in low-light conditions is entirely beside the point.)

"Just how orange am I?" he asks, but he already knows the answer. Jim's hands were pretty much everywhere, not just on his face.

One of the patches of moonlight helpfully allows him to see Jim's quirked eyebrow. Jim shrugs. "Let's just say you need a shower."

Blair rolls his eyes. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you do, too."

"Pretty safe bet," Jim says, but absently; his free hand is back on Blair's body, warm and deliberate on the side of Blair's neck, and his fingers are tracing tiny, teasing circles just below the line of Blair's jaw. 

It takes a few moments for Blair to remember what he needs to say, and even longer for him to force himself to say it (Jim's fingers right _there,_ God), but eventually he accomplishes a not-very-eloquent "Um." Which isn't exactly everything he needs to say. "Um," he tries again, "Jim," and manages to forge ahead. "The Doritos. We haven't ever checked to make sure all those additives and preservatives and dyes aren't having some kind of cumulative effect on you. I know it sounds out there, but we could be dealing with any number of anomalous aphrodisiac ramifications that would explain -"

Jim's snort this time isn't followed by a yawn. He pats Blair's cheek chidingly. "Don't strain something there, Einstein. You're not thinking straight."

Blair narrows his eyes; he can't stop himself. He also can't stop himself from blurting, "Tell me why, then - I mean why _then?_ and _why -_ you've never -"

He stops because Jim's fingers have moved to his lips, tapping them gently. "You've got an official pass that says you're an observer; maybe you need to turn that pass in, Chief. This has been coming a long time," he says. 

Blair's on the verge of blurting out something else - God knows what - when Jim goes on, "But you're right, the Doritos did have something to do with it."

"Okay," Blair says, even though it's suddenly not so okay at all, "we'll figure this out. No problem. I'll set up some tests, and -"

And Jim is laughing, the jerk. "I don't think the way I feel about you is going to fit into your research data," he says. "There's nothing to figure out here. Except this," and he leans in and hey, surprise, it turns out that Blair's lips are willing to go the extra mile, no matter how chafed they are. The extra mile and then some...

"Mmm," Blair says, possibly hours later. The moonlight's vanished, anyway, replaced by the tentative light of approaching dawn. It's just enough light for him to see the tiny smile at the corner of Jim's mouth as he lies on his side facing Blair. Watching him. 

Which, okay, is only fair. 

There's a smudge of something on Jim's cheek, and even though the growing light isn't strong enough yet to pick up any color, Blair has absolutely zero doubt that the smudge is orange. 

"Doritos." There might be a faint hint of accusation in his voice - Jim did agree that the Doritos were at least partly responsible, after all - but Blair knows he mostly just sounds maxed-out. Making out with Jim apparently does that to him. "The Doritos." He takes in a deep breath and releases it. "Jim?"

"Blair," Jim says calmly, and whoa. Not 'Sandburg', not 'Chief', but 'Blair'. 

"'Blair'?" Blair echoes. "Who are you, and what have you done to Jim Ellison?"

Jim chuckles. Then the smile drops from his face and he shakes his head. "The more important question is, what have _you_ done to Jim Ellison? Because I sure as hell don't know."

"You're asking _me?_ " Blair says in disbelief, and Jim's smile returns.

"You're the genius here, Sandburg," Jim says, grinning, and just like that, Blair's back on familiar ground. Well, okay, new ground - hell, a new _planet_ \- but still, somehow, familiar. 

"I'm asking you about the fucking _Doritos,_ " Blair says, and whacks Jim's arm solidly with the back of his hand. "Pay attention."

"Oh, I plan to," Jim says, and the way his smile turns wicked, the way his eyes travel slowly up and down Blair's body, is so distracting that Blair almost misses what Jim says next. "You really want to know? It wasn't anything _in_ the Doritos, Chief; it was the way you wrinkled your nose every time I pulled a chip out of the bag and put it in my mouth. I just couldn't take it anymore."

"We had sex because I wrinkled my nose at you?" Blair feels a frown settle on his face. "Okay, a) I don't wrinkle my nose, and b) that's a completely ridiculous reason for wanting to have sex."

"Yes, you do," Jim says, "and no, it isn't." He looks at Blair with sudden intensity, an intensity Blair can feel all the way down to his toes. "I got tired of holding back. I don't want to hold back anymore. Do you?" He pauses, and then, deliberately, and very quietly, adds, "Blair?"

It's kind of like being sucker-punched, despite everything else that's happened since Jim abandoned both Bonanza and his bag of Doritos last night. Sucker-punched in the best way possible, and Blair feels like he's free-falling and floating and flying, all at the same time. 

He's pretty sure he'll never get used to that feeling. Or to the expression on Jim's face: wide open and hopeful. 

He smiles, and something in his smile must satisfy Jim, judging by the way Jim's eyes crinkle as he smiles back at Blair. "Hold back? No way, man," Blair says, and thumps Jim on the arm again. "Bring it."


End file.
